


Flowers, Beads and ...

by rangerkier



Category: BomBARDed (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 04:38:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16825297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerkier/pseuds/rangerkier
Summary: Chaos Sauce talks birthdays, past and future.





	Flowers, Beads and ...

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for BomBARDed's first birthday back in August I think, before some backstory stuff got revealed that goes against some stuff in this fic so just pretend, kay?

Randy and Raz’ul both looked up in confusion at Yashee’s question. It came completely out of the blue, asking when their birthdays were.

“I just wanna be prepared, y’know!” Yashee defended herself at their skeptical looks. “I don’t want your birthdays sneaking up on me without being able to get you guys a gift or plan a party.”

“You don’t have to worry about all that, Yashee,” Raz’ul told her, though he was smiling softly at her.

“Yeah, it’s not really that big a deal.”

“But I want to!” she insisted. “It’ll be fun, birthdays are great! I wanna hear about your birthdays growing up too!”

“Iiiii don’t know,” Randy wasn’t sure what he would even say to answer Yashee’s questions. He looked over to Raz’ul, wondering how he felt about this. Raz’ul didn’t seem as skeptical, but he wasn’t jumping to regale them with tales of his youth either. 

“I can go first!” Yashee offered. “I mean, if you guys are actually okay with this. Like, it’s not a sore subject is it?”

“No! No, it’s fine,” Raz’ul was quick to assure her before turning to Randy.

“Go ahead,” Randy shrugged.  
\---  
Yashee’s birthday was March twentieth. 

“First day of spring!” Raz’ul pointed out with a smile.

Yashee returned his smile with her own toothy grin. That was what her dad always said, that Yashee brought spring with her when she was born. And because of the start of the season, they would always spend the morning picking flowers together, and arranging them into bouquets to decorate whatever space they were celebrating in. And she would spend the day with her family, singing and dancing and eating.

Sometimes, she told them, it was just her and her parents. They were on the road a lot in her youth after all; they weren’t always able to celebrate with other people. But sometimes they managed to plan it out, such that they were in one of her parents’ home towns for the day, and they could have a huge party with her extended family. No matter what though, it was always a lot of fun and food and noise.

She told them about her father braiding fresh flowers into her hair, of setting up impromptu wrestling tournaments with her cousins, of playing music with and for her family, having music played for her. Despite his hesitance, Randy was overjoyed that he had agreed to this conversation thread. Yashee was animated and exuberant, obviously having a great time recalling all these memories and sharing them with him and Raz’ul. And she beamed every time one of them would interject with a comment of their own. At one point Raz’ul said he would love to braid flowers into her hair, and Randy was pretty sure the only time he saw her happier was when they convinced Drew to trade Sandy for a song.

After a while, she stopped recounting stories, looking somewhat sheepish. “Sorry, I went on for a bit there, huh?”

“Don’t worry about it, Yashee!” Raz’ul told her. “It was nice to hear!”

“Yeah, it clearly means a lot to you.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to hear from you guys! What are your birthdays like?”

Raz’ul turned to Randy with a questioning look, which Randy answered with a “go ahead” gesture. Raz’ul shrugged and faced forward to start talking.  
\---  
Raz’ul’s birthday was November sixth. It was a time, he said, that depending on the year could give him an autumn or a winter birthday. He told them about quiet walks through the forest, red and gold leaves surrounding him on the trees and crunching beneath his boots. Or days in Mount Tain, going outside and watching the snow fall across the range. 

Apparently, while he was with Reed, his birthday was hardly different from any other day. A small gift from Reed, and a slower day perhaps, but otherwise the same schedule of travel and lessons. Raz’ul smiled fondly as he told them how sometimes he would give in to one of Raz’ul’s requests for insight into Reed’s past, or for lessons on things too advanced for him to be learning. It was a quiet and simple time, but a good one.

Further back in his past, he would have parties in the mountain. He kept trying to avoid talking about how many people were there, but Randy got the idea that they were pretty big affairs. There was music and dancing and food and generally a lot of fun. It sounded like there was also some level of stress and discomfort involved in the whole thing, though Randy couldn’t work out exactly why. Raz’ul shied away from that though, so he and Yashee let him.

He told them about reaching dwarvish milestones. How some years, before the party, his brothers would collect him and send him on a rite of passage. When he first grew a beard long enough, they put a braid in it and gave him his first bead; Raz’ul’s fingers absently twirled at one of the beads in his beard and Randy wondered if it was the same one. He recounted climbing the mountain, higher than ever before, and travelling deeper into the mines than he’d ever been and learning of the most protected ore deposit under the mountain. 

Or some years, he smiled, there wasn’t anything like that; it was just a year. His brothers would just spend the day with him, gently teasing him for various things, and playing games from their childhoods. Randy glanced at Yashee and shared a smile with her. The only thing they’d previously known about Raz’ul’s brothers was what Squid Vicious had dragged out of his mind. It was nice to hear him talk about them on his own terms, and to see him smile as he did so.

Raz’ul didn’t really acknowledge it when he was done sharing, at some point he just slowly trailed off, wearing a peaceful smile.  
\---  
Randy enjoyed hearing these stories from his friends. They didn’t get many chances to talk about their pasts, and it was nice to know they could both smile about it. Sometimes he thought about how little he knew of their lives before Strumlott’s, and worried they were full of pain and sorrow. But from these anecdotes, he now knew there was at least some good. He was glad; they both deserved that.

“What about you, Randy?” 

“What?” Yashee’s question pulled him from his mind and he looked up to see both his bandmates looking at him curiously.

“Isn’t it your turn now?” Raz’ul gently elbowed him. “When’s your birthday?”

“I…” Randy hesitated. It had been a long time, to say the least, since he celebrated his birthday, since he was in a position where he could. And it was a genuine shock when he realized, in that moment, that he was in that position again. He thought back, trying to remember the month and the day. He wasn’t very good with numbers, but surely the name of the month was somewhere in his mind. Yashee and Raz’ul were looking at him with patient but expectant looks, and he had no answer. “Um, summer.”

“What, the whole season?” Yashee joked with a crooked grin. “That must have been some celebration!”

“C’mon, man, seriously. When’s your birthday?”

“I- don’t know.”

Raz’ul continued to smile for a moment, like he still thought it was a joke. After looking at Randy’s own solemn face for a moment, it began to slip. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah, I mean… It’s not like the Nowhere Man really even talked about birthdays, let alone celebrate them. And afterwards… I was on my own and usually had more important things to worry about than my birthday.”

He realized he was staring at his hands. After all their happy stories and memories, he found he didn’t want to meet their gaze while he told them he didn’t even remember when his birthday was. The thumb of one hand rubbed against the index finger of the other, and he watched the movement while he waited for one of his friends to say something. 

Neither of them did. Eventually, Randy couldn’t take it any longer and looked up, glancing at each of them in turn. Raz’ul looked sad and confused; he was having trouble grasping the idea of forgetting something like that. Yashee however, looked positively devastated. She stared at him, looking like she was about to cry.

“That’s… really sad, man.”

“I-” Randy paused, not sure he wanted to continue that sentence. Not for his sake so much as for his friends’. I was more concerned with staying alive. With Yashee’s expression right now, he didn’t think he wanted to drop that on her, even if she might suspect it already. “I guess.”

“Well, I guess that just means… it means you get to pick your birthday now.”

“What?” Randy looked up at Raz’ul. Pick his birthday? A birthday was- well it was a day, a day you were given, he supposed. Picking it out yourself was just outlandish.

“Yeah!” Yashee perked up a bit at Raz’ul’s suggestion.

“You need a birthday,” Raz’ul insisted. “It’s not fair that because you had a rough past and forgot it because you were focused on surviving, you never get to celebrate yourself. A birthday is, like, your day. You deserve to have one.”

“Yeah!” Yashee’s exclamation was even louder this time, and she was back to her cheery, energetic self. “What’ll it be, Randy? If it’s summer, that gives you a few months to work with. Maybe June, July or August?”

“I… don’t know.”

“I’ve always liked June,” she leaned back on her hands and looked at the ceiling dreamily. “It’s the beginning of summer, I guess. Everything that comes with summer is just blooming and coming into season, it’s never too hot. It’s nice!” she looked back down at Randy with a grin.

“July is right in between March and November,” Raz’ul offered when he remained silent. “You could have a birthday comfortably sandwhiched between ours.”

“Oh! I like that!”

“Yeah,” Randy responded quietly. It seemed like this was happening, no matter how strange he found it. He might as well agree to something. “Yeah, I like that too.”

“Alright! Now you just need to pick a day!”

“Umm…” Randy wasn’t good at numbers. He could just say any random number he knew, but he got the feeling they would ask why he chose it. 

“What’s your favorite number?” Raz’ul asked.

The first number that came to his mind as an answer was twenty. It was the highest number he could count to without extended effort. But it was also the day of Yashee’s birthday. Even if they were several months apart, it felt like stealing something from her, and he didn’t want to steal from Yashee.

He looked around at his friends as he thought. They were both looking at him with patient smiles, letting him pick a day without any further input. He looked at them both and thought about the three of them sharing stories and memories, good times and joys as well as perils and fears. He looked at them and felt safe.

“Three. My favorite number is three.”

“That’s settled then. Your birthday is July third,” Raz’ul put his hand on Randy’s shoulder and smiled. “Gives us a bit of time to plan a good party for you.”

“Yeah, we’ve gotta give you a really good one to make up for all the ones you missed!”

Randy smiled at them and felt his cheeks warm. “Thanks, you guys.”

“Of course! I’d never stand for you being left out of the celebrations!” Yashee puffed her chest out a bit in her enthusiasm. A glance at Raz’ul showed that he once again had a curious look on his face. There was another small moment of comfortable silence before he spoke on it.

“What about before?” Randy raised an eyebrow in a silent question, not understanding. “Before the Nowhere Man, I mean. Like, do you have birthday memories from before? With your family?”

“I-” Randy thought back, trying to pull the memories up. He knew he remembered, at least something, but he kept a lot of that locked away. Even the happy times he could remember with his family, they hurt sometimes to think about. “I think it was usually quiet. My parents would make me whatever I wanted to eat. I think my mother baked, she would make a cake, and my father would cook the meal. I’m pretty sure I remember decorating the cake myself at least once with my-” he caught himself. He didn’t know if he was ready to talk about that. “My family.” If Raz’ul and Yashee noticed the skip in his words, neither of them said anything. 

Randy knew that Joby Bear was sitting next to him on the sofa, and a part of him wanted to pull him to his chest and hug him. But he was worried that would give something away. Something he wasn’t ready to give away yet. He settled on running his thumb over his finger again.

“Yeah, I- I don’t know. I don’t think I remember any specifics, other than that. But, I guess… I remember being happy. That’s the important thing, right?” he pulled his eyes away from his hands and looked between his friends once more.

“Of course! I’m glad you’ve got some happy birthday memories!”

“Yeah, and hopefully you’ll make some more with us come summer.”

“I’m sure I will.”

“July third! Don’t forget this one!” Raz’ul pointed at him with mock seriousness.

Randy rolled his eyes and laughed.


End file.
